


who tells your story

by msbluesunflower



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Canon Compliant, Catharsis, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Interviews, M/M, Magazine Article, Multimedia, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Resolution, in the event that Steve dies in Avengers 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 02:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15160160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msbluesunflower/pseuds/msbluesunflower
Summary: "The world will remember Captain America, I’m sure, but if it’s up to me, they should remember little Stevie, remember the boy picking fights in the alleys of Brooklyn who just wouldn’t quit. Remember him for me, just in case I forget him again."





	who tells your story

  **THE NEW YORKER**

**PERSONAL HISTORY       JULY 4, 2019 ISSUE**

  
_**Remembering Steve G. Rogers:**_

_**An Conversation with James Buchanan Barnes** _

**by Sean T. Dugan**

 

The Fourth of July of 2005, my parents and I drove up to my grandparents’ home in Massachusetts for our annual family barbecue. I was thirteen and, being the tallest amongst the kids, was asked by my grandma to grab her recipe binder from top of the bookshelf as she was busy working in the kitchen. When reaching for the recipe binder, however, I accidentally knocked a framed photo off the bookshelf, and its glass cover shattered on the hardwood floor. My grandfather came into the study after he heard the noise and became incredibly anxious when he noticed the picture frame on the floor, though he was then relieved to find that the photograph itself was not damaged.

The photograph, as it turned out, was one of Captain America and Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, taken by him in 1944 when he was working with Captain Rogers in taking down HYDRA sites across Europe, as a member of what is now known as the Howling Commandos. In the heavily faded photo, Captain Rogers was speaking into Sergeant Barnes’ ear, while Barnes was laughing brightly, an arm slung over Captain Rogers’ shoulders.

“We were sitting outside Cap’s tent eating lunch together,” My grandfather said when I asked him about that day, while we were searching for a new picture frame in the shops downtown. “Bucky had let me borrow his camera to play around, and I was looking across at them and thinking it’d be a nice moment to capture, ya know? It ended up being the last photo of them together, and before I could give his camera back Bucky had fallen off that damned train.”

After my grandfather’s death in 2009, that photo, along with some of his other personal belongings and memorabilia, was stored in the attic of the house, something I hadn’t found out about until last month, when my father asked me to help clean out the house for sale. Truthfully, I had mostly forgotten about it until I opened the dusty cardboard box and saw it sitting on top of everything else, still intact in the wooden frame my grandfather and I had gone and bought together. But when I looked at the photo this time around — at Cap and Sergeant Barnes, who seemed so young and carefree, what I remembered wasn’t just the old wartime stories my grandfather had told me when I was little, but Sergeant Barnes’ face as he carried Captain Rogers’ casket down the aisle at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, just two weeks before.

Like many in the nation and around the world, nothing prepared me for the emotional difficulty of watching the live broadcast of Captain Rogers’ funeral service, knowing that he had given his life for bringing back trillion of lives in the whole universe, among those the loved ones all of us lost on that fateful day a year ago and thought would never regain. What I didn’t realize until I saw again the photo my grandfather had taken seventy-five years ago, however, was that when the universe got their loved ones back from the dead, the war hero who, as we know now, underwent seventy-years of torture, brainwashing, and other appallingly inhumane treatment at the hands of HYDRA before being wronged and branded as a war criminal by his own country, had lost the one person who’s never turned his back on him. I knew then that it was the least that I could do — for him, Captain Rogers, and my grandfather — to return the photograph to its rightful owner.

But getting in contact with Sergeant Barnes was even harder than I had imagined in the immediate aftermath of Captain Rogers’ funeral. I eventually found out through my friend Sharon Carter (the niece of Peggy Carter, cofounder of S.H.I.E.L.D as well as my grandfather’s old friend) that Sergeant Barnes had most likely chosen to stay with the Avengers. I then contacted Stark Industries’ PR department and was, unsurprisingly, taken to be just another reporter trying to get to Sergeant Barnes for a chance of an interview, until Ms. Pepper Potts herself recognized my last name when an employee mentioned my emails in passing. She then personally informed me that Sergeant Barnes had left New York on a trip of indeterminable length, but that she would contact me as soon as he returns. I didn’t feel that I had to return the photo in person and, by the end of June, was planning on contacting Ms. Potts again for an address to mail it to. That was when I got a call from Sergeant Barnes himself.

I ended up meeting him at a little café in Brooklyn Heights on June 30th. It was an abnormally chilly morning for summer, but I was sweating so much out of nervousness of meeting the man whom I had heard all about when I was a young boy and held as a hero in my heart, who I knew must still be suffering from terrible, unimaginable grief. I didn’t know what to expect, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to walk into the café and see Sergeant Barnes in plain t-shirt and jeans, sitting at a table in the corner with a cup of coffee, reading the Times like any other New Yorker might on a Sunday morning. He had looked up then, and after a moment, recognition flashed across his face and his eyes brightened.

“Sean, right? Gosh, you look just like your grandpa.” He said and gestured for me to sit. “Always told him he ought to get rid of the mustache. I was right.”

“It’s an honor to finally meet you, sir. Gramps told me a whole lot about you when I was growing up.” I had managed, though my hands were still twitching nervously.

“Well hopefully only the good parts.” He smiled a little at that — a smile I couldn’t quite associate with someone who’d gone through all that he had, someone who’d just lost their best friend.

When I took the framed photograph out of my backpack and handed it to him, he’d taken it with both of his hands like he was holding something incredibly delicate and precious — and indeed it was. But what surprised me was what he said as he stared at the photograph, his non-prosthetic hand stroking the glass gently. “Christ, we really weren’t subtle at all, were we?” He chuckled, his eyes looking a little wet, glinting with unshed tears.

“Subtle about what?” I asked, still completely clueless.

“About us, you know, being _us_?” He looked up at me and frowned. A pause, and the look on his face turns into something like surprise and wonder. “You don’t know.”

I imagine I was gaping at him rather ungracefully.

“Your gramps gave you this photograph, and didn’t tell you anything? Wow, never thought Dum Dum would be one to keep it secret for so long.”

“You’re saying that Captain Rogers was — ” I stumbled, suddenly unable to find the right word, but Sergeant Barnes only smiled again and softly finished my sentence for me.

“ — Is the love of my life. Boyfriend, partner, whatever you kids call it these days.” He glanced back down at the photograph, at his younger self laughing at some joke or banter now he alone knows. “Been together since 1934. Spent way more time apart than together, though.”

I was stunned speechless, but in my mind the puzzles suddenly started falling into place. It wasn’t that my grandpa never hinted at it, I realized, only that I was too young to pick up on it.

“Someday, boy, you’ll find the Bucky to your Steve.” I remembered grandpa saying once when I asked him what love really is. “Or the Steve to your Bucky, same difference.”

I hadn’t reached out to Sergeant Barnes in hopes for an opportunity to interview him, out of respect for his privacy and the understanding that the loss may simply be too heavy that he may never wish to talk about it. But as this new and rather astonishing information was revealed to me so easily and almost casually, I couldn’t help wondering if the true nature of their relationship was something he might want the world to find out and remember, something that should go down in history.

“Do you plan on ever telling that to the public?” I tried to phrase the question as cautiously as possible. “Now may be the right time to do it, don’t you think?”

“Nah, there cannot be a worse time, actually. And there won’t ever be a right time again.” Barnes shook his head and looked away, like he was having an internal battle with himself about whether to say what he wants to say. After a long silence, however, he seemed to have made a decision. “I won’t be the stain on his reputation. Especially now. He deserves to be remembered by history as the great man that he is, without being slandered and tarnished for being involved with someone like me.”

“No, you’re a war hero, sir, and a prisoner of war — a victim.” I replied, suddenly feeling rather ashamed. Back in 2014, talks of bringing the Winter Soldier to justice was incessant after the S.H.I.E.L.D files were released to the public, and even after the full details of what HYDRA had done to him was made known to the world, those arguing for Barnes’ own innocence were still very much in the minority. In 2016, I was one of many who had believed that Barnes was responsible for the bombing of the United Nations until the arrest of Helmut Zemo was made. But after Barnes fought again for the safety of the world despite how the world has treated him, the idea that he still saw himself as the assassin HYDRA made him into came as a hard pill to swallow.

“Steve always says the same thing. He told me, ‘what you’ve done — that wasn’t you’, but the fact is, it was me. My head was scrambled, sure, but it was my hands that were covered in blood. That’ll never change.” He grows quiet at that, his expression becoming more guarded and distant than before.

“But that doesn’t make it your fault, and it doesn’t make you a stain on his reputation.” I countered, pushing myself to be brave. “I think Captain Rogers would’ve wanted his story to be told truthfully, for the world to know who he really is, and there isn’t anyone can do it better than you. The last thing he wants to see is for you to erase yourself from the narrative, from what historians are going to write about him. ”

Sergeant Barnes stared at me for a beat, his eyes unreadable. Then he laughed. “You’re too smart for your own good, kid. Pepper told me you write for The New Yorker. Tryna get something to write about?”

I shook my head. “Not unless you want me to write about it.”

“Well,” Barnes leaned back, reaching up to put his hair up into ponytail, his eyes glinting mischievously. “Better start asking questions and taking notes, then. I’ve got a lunch date with Wilson.”

I blinked, still trying to process the strange turn of events, until I realized in panic that I had no idea what to ask. So I rummaged through my bag for my tablet to start recording and taking notes, then asked the easiest question — their first meeting, and Barnes grinned fondly at the memory.

“I was ten, I think, just biking around town on a Friday after school. I saw him in an alley, lying on the ground with his face all bloodied, but he was breathing. I managed to wake him up then took him home. Apparently he had caught another kid stealing from the candy shop next door, then the kid brought his older, bigger friends and beat him up. And there it goes, been stuck with that stubborn punk ever since.”

“You said you’ve been together since 1934, so when you were — sixteen and seventeen?” I asked after doing the math in my head, a little shocked at the young age. 1934, I thought, what would’ve it been like?

“Yeah.” Barnes breathed, almost slightly surprised himself. “It just — happened, like it was the easiest thing in the world, like there wasn’t any other way. He was the one, I think I knew then, despite him being a little shit who always got in trouble and never knew to protect himself. There wasn’t going to be anyone else.” His gaze casts downwards at that. “There isn’t going to be anyone else.”

I realized then something that probably should’ve occurred to me even earlier on: a love story like this one is the stuff of legends.

When I asked about how they had managed to keep their relationship hidden in wartime, he had deadpanned — “We didn’t. Everyone around us knew, or at least had a clue, I’d imagine. Your grandfather was probably the first to realize, now that I think about it, when he found out that Steve had stormed that HYDRA base to look for me. None of the guys gave a damn, though. When everyone’s thinking that they might die the next day, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, the day after your grandpa took that photo, I fell off the train.”

I flinched a little inside at the casual mention of the tragic event that was to change his life forever, but when I looked up, Sergeant Barnes seemed oddly at peace, as if the event was so insignificant it wasn’t even worth discussing. Then I understood — next to the cruelty and devastation he had gone through in the seventy years after that day, the fall itself paled in comparison. At that point, I was tempted to ask about his years as the Winter Soldier, and how he had eventually broken out of HYDRA’s control. The question was on the tip of my tongue, but it felt wrong to say out loud. Somehow, as if reading my mind, Barnes started talking without prompting.

“It sounds crazy, but in the years after that I could always hear a voice in the back of my mind. A distant echo. A resounding scream. And it hurt, the force of it could rip my head apart. There were other words, too, words floating around in my head that I couldn’t catch, words on the tip of my tongue that I couldn’t pronounce. Everything was so — I don’t know how to describe it — muddled, and foggy, I guess. Then I was fighting Steve on the bridge and he ripped my mask off my face, looked right at me, and said my name. And that was it — it sounded just like that echo.

Then we were on the helicarrier — I’m sure you know about that — and he just wouldn’t fight me, threw his goddamned shield straight into the Potomac too. I mean, can you believe that asshole? Still didn’t know to protect himself after all these years. I guess that’s what I was there for. That pretty face got all bloodied and swollen. I stared at him, and believe it or not, started to recognize the face — He looked just like he did when I picked him up in that back alley when I was ten. Then he goes, “I’m with you till the end of the line”, and Jesus fucking Christ, the muffled words that had been floating around? There they were. He said it, just like that, and suddenly I could hear them clearly in my head, too.

I think all that fucked-up stuff HYDRA did throughout the years never actually got them fully out of my mind, you know? And I don’t believe they could have. I don’t believe anyone could have. I don’t believe anyone could’ve erased him from me.

The rest — Bucharest and Berlin, I’m sure you already know.”

Thank God for recordings because I had completely stopped taking notes by that point. I took a gulp of my cold coffee, and nodded.

“As for after — ” Barnes paused, a gentle sort of sadness flashing in his eyes, and for a moment I thought he looked almost vulnerable. “Wakanda was the most peaceful two years of my life since 1943, I’d say, and it was already more than I ever thought I’d have with him. Then I went and died on him again, so I guess if one of us had to be left behind this time around it had to be me, otherwise it would hardly be fair.

You see, I’m just one of the many people Steve has saved in his lifetime, probably the worst of them, I’m willing to bet. He saved me more than once, in more ways than one — not just my life, he saved my soul, too, even when I believed that I no longer had one.

He asked me in ‘43 if I was willing to 'follow Captain America into the jaws of death'. The thing is, I’ve been following him since I was ten, and I’m still following him now, even though he’s not here. Not the uniform or the shield — but Steve Rogers. The world will remember Captain America, I’m sure, but if it’s up to me, they should remember little Stevie, remember the boy picking fights in the alleys of Brooklyn who just wouldn’t quit. Remember him for me, just in case I forget him again.”

Sergeant Barnes glanced down and rubbed a hand over his neck, and that was when the silver chain peeking out of his shirt collar caught my eye. It looked like the chain for dog tags. Noticing me staring, Barnes tugged on the chain and pulled it out from under his shirt. The aluminum tags fell right over his heart, but the name on them wasn’t his.

“It’s Steve’s. Mine were long gone. They gave me most of his stuff. The Avengers all know, by the way, in case you were wondering.”

“So is it true that you’re going to stay on the team?” I asked, curious about his future plans.

“Tony had asked me to, actually, which is unbelievably generous of him. I think I will. This world is fragile enough as it is, and it can’t go unprotected.” He finished his coffee and checked his phone for time. “I’ve still got a minute. Anything else you wanna know, kid?”

I had one question left. It was the only one that really mattered in the end.

“How are you holding up, Sergeant Barnes?”

He smiled, his eyes warm.

“I’m alive, because he wants me to be. I’ll live this life, too, because it’s what he wants to see. And I’ll do what I can to protect this fucked-up place because it’s what he would do.”

He rolled up his newspaper and carefully put the photo inside his backpack. He took out something from his backpack, too, and placed it on the table in front of me. I glanced down — it’s a postcard of the Grand Canyon.

“Took a road trip there recently.” He explained, “It’s not much but — thanks for bringing it back to me.”

Sergeant Barnes glanced outside then, and I turned to find Sam Wilson standing under the awning waving at us. Barnes grabbed his backpack and stood up to leave, but then paused and turned back to me.

“Look, Steve and I were raised Catholic, and I don’t really believe in much these days but if there is some kind of heaven and hell, I know I’ve done enough to burn in hell a thousand times over. But he’d be in heaven, no doubt, so I gotta spend the rest of my days at least try to break even, and convince whoever decides these things up there to maybe let me go there and find him.”

“God knows you deserve at least that.”

“I’m counting on it.”

 

_Sean Timothy Dugan is a staff columinst living in Westchester, NY._

_This article appears in the print edition of the July 4, 2019, issue, with the headline “Who Tells Your Story?”_

**Author's Note:**

> Sean Dugan is listed as Dum Dum's grandson on his wikia for Earth-616, although there doesn't seem to be any information about his age or occupation. Y'all just have to indulge me.
> 
> I don't know what came over me but I got obsessed with the thought of Steve dying in the next movie, which as it's looking right now, is actually quite likely. I couldn't help thinking about how Bucky could possibly cope and keep living afterwards, so this happened.


End file.
